Genuinely ambivalent about having children?

[unnaturalwoman]

I am 37 and I just don't know how I feel about having children, I am married to a wonderful man who loves me and he would be a good dad I am sure. I think I would be a good mum, and that I would love my children if I had them but I have never ever actually felt the urge to have a child. I keep waiting and waiting for it to happen and it never does. I like babies they are interesting to watch and to see them develop. I feel like most people know one way or another they either really want a baby or don't want one at all but I don't feel that way.

I lost a chunk of my life in my 20's and early 30's to caring for an ill family member and to my own health issues. Due to this I only finished my education last year (MA) and I do want a career in my field. The truth is I am not ready for children now but I don't really have the option of putting it off due to my age. I worry I will change my mind or that I will regret not having children in my old age but what I might regret isn't a good enough reason to have a baby. I always felt I should really want one, that wanting one was normal but I just don't crave a baby.

What happens when you are genuinely ambivalent about having kids? Did all of you who had them actually really want them or did you have them because it was what you were supposed to do? Did you feelings about having kids before you had them affect how you felt after you had them?

I also read on here about the strain kids can put on a marriage and how difficult some women find it, how they feel they lose themselves when they have children, I feel scared by all that.

i felt the same as you. and also in the creative arts.

i have 3 now and while it has been incredibly hard and i've had bad days i don't regret the children themselves. they are amazing. i sometimes struggle with the day to day grind and stress. and all the crap that parenthood brings.

my creativity has increased i think, and i think it's very important to keep on despite babies / children. do it after they're in bed, whenever you have a spare moment. i stopped and i got depressed.

i feel a better rounded person, and that i've 'grown up' really.

i didn't want to live with regret after it was too late. my brother said to me 'there is only one thing more terrible than having children, and that's not having them.'

Sorry I think your brother is wrong. And there are people who do regret having children. Women have spoken about it on MN.

I certainly didn't crave children, I never gave them a thought til I got married and even then, I don't think craving would be the right word. I also dreaded the loss of autonomy and self that I thought would go along with having children, as I am not naturally a self-sacrificing caring type, and was quite depressed when pregnant with my first. The first few months and years were as I expected on that front, and I felt a little taken over.

I don't now though, the children are a bit older and I have a lot of freedom, career-wise and creatively. I am more tired than I'm sure I'd be if I didn't have two children to care for, but it hasn't stopped anything that I wanted to do- write, travel and so on.

One thing to think about is that you don't have to have a lot of children! You could have none, obviously or only one. If I am truthful, my friends with only one have tended to have a less chaotic family life and it is less taken over than those who have say three.

At the moment, it sounds like you are saying that you are happy not having children right now, but would like the option in the future. That's not what is on the table though, and at some level, you either have to make peace with having any, as some of my friends have done and are happy with their decision, or crack on, as others have done. I don't have any close friends who have seriously regretted having children in the long term, but there have been periods of regret and discontent along the way.

Haven't read the whole thread but thought I'd put in my two cents:

I kind know how you feel. My first child wAs unplanned, and I can't honestly have say I would have reached a definite decision to have children if that hadn't happened! However, I am now pregnant with second because I've actually felt broody for the first time ever, and my first is so bloody wonderful I want another!

I don't really have any advice about what you should do, but when making your decision I think you should consider the fact that they are not children forever. You may not be that fussed about the idea if raising babies,but when you are older will you feel sad that you don't have any grown up children to have a family relationship with? A friend of mine is not particularly broody, but she stills knows she wants kids as she and her parents and her grown up siblings all have lovely relationships, and she wants to replicate that for her future, if that makes sense!

canwe - You can have grown up children and have no real family relationship with them. This must be heartbreaking as a mother. But I know a number of people who have no or minimal contact with their parents.

True turgid.

turgiday - i have some days i agree with you and some i agree with him.

i personally regret the circumstances i sometimes find myself in that have occurred as a result of having children, i don't regret the children themselves.

I am not saying people shouldn't have children, simply don't make the reason to have children an image of what your relationship will be like with them when they are young adults. You don't know what will happen. Your child may be severely disabled and never live independently, you may have a difficult relationship, they may move to the other side of the world, or they may be the kind of person who focusses on the family they create with their own children and ignores largely their own parents.

I think if you have children, it should be because you want to bring up a child.

My mum was ambivalent and had children because that's what that you did when you were married, her words.

I don't think she regrets having us but we know how much she 'sacrificed' to have us. We know she didn't follow her dream and that we were hard work.

I feel a sadness that I never had a proper mothers love. What I have with my boys is not the same at all as what she felt for my brother and I. She happily admits it as well.

I have a teenager from an unplanned pg years ago, but as I'm in a new relationship now I'm in a similar situation. I'm also in my 30s and finishing my education (also in the creative arts). I've never felt this 'broodiness' feeling that women mention on MN and have no great yearning to be a parent again, but at the same time DH has no dc of his own, and I'm aware that it's something I can't put off biologically.

I suppose I'm in a different position because I've had the one dc, so I don't have the feeling of wondering what it would be like, although I was a single mum before I met my current partner so it was a different experience to having a child in a relationship.

I am just finishing my studies now and I'm leaning on the side of not having any more dc. In my field, you can't just make up the time when the dc are in bed, it requires quite a bit of networking, going out in the evenings and grabbing opportunities which may be last minute or involve a lot of travel. I could do that with my teenager now, but not a young baby. And while, with some careers you could take time out with children and return in your 40s, that would make you very old in my field. I'm already too old for quite a few opportunities that I've seen advertised!

I think the impact on your relationship and lifestyle is a valid concern. DH and I have very few arguments, we have a comfortable lifestyle, never worry about money and spend lots of time of quality time together. I don't want to change that really, I see the strain on family finances and relationships in friends/family and I think I would have to crave a baby to put us through that.

I was always ambiguous about having children, I never had an urge within me yo have them. When people asked me about having children I told them I really wasn't sure I even wanted them and I meant it. My boyfriend at the time (who is now my DH) felt the same. We said that in the future if it happened it happened and if it didn't then so what? To be honest, I wasn't too sure I wanted to give up my freedom and way of life: quite a selfish attitude but it's the one I had.

However as our relationship progressed he started mentioning babies in a way that implied he definitely wanted one. We didn't have a sit down discussion about it but somehow we found ourselves TTC a few months after we got married. I think we thought getting pregnant would take ages so we didn't actually consider the seriousness of what we were doing and wouldn't you know it, I got pregnant in our first month of trying.

Our baby is 6 weeks old now and he is my absolute everything. Sometimes I just cry when I look at him because of how much I love him. He overwhelms me. You can't describe how it feels....it's like everything that mattered beforehand doesn't even compare to how much your baby matters. I don't even remember what my life was like before he arrived but I know that it certainly couldn't have been as fulfilling as it is now. I don't see how anything in my pre-baby life could have made me more happy than what I am now. He's just this amazing little being, the most important thing in the world to me and it's a wonderful feeling.

It can be tough on relationships, it already has with me and DH but sleep deprivation will do that

40 in a couple of months and certain that I don't want children. Happy with this decision and never doubt myself, (although others do, society doesn't know how to react to a woman who genuinely doesn't have any desire to have a baby).

Aside from the fact that I simply don't want to have a baby, from a practical perspective I would find having a baby too much of an upheaval, my life is so established; I love being spontaneous, not ever having to worry about things like who is going babysit if I want to do anything, or having to rush home from work to collect the kids from wherever, etc, I love my freedom, and sleep, lazing around at the weekends, or jumping in the car and going off somewhere on a whim.. and my 'selfish' (!) life too much to give it up.. I love being able to go out when I please, take holidays whenever I like to wherever I like, and to be honest, I love not having to think about anyone else or be responsible for another human being. I really do believe that unless you really want a baby, you shouldn't add to our already overpopulated world. Two of my best friends also are 100% that they don't want to have kids, which is obviously great for me.

I don't have a baby shaped hole in my life and babies just don't stir me emotionally. A dog shaped hole, now that's a whole other issue..

'Sorry I think your brother is wrong. And there are people who do regret having children. '

Completely agree.

I'm 34 now and have known since I was 19 that children were not for me. It's a complex and very personal issue for many people and I have had periods of feeling intensely broody but my gut feeling has always been a firm no. More and more women are not having children for a range of reasons - there's a prediction that of women born in the 70s, 25% will not have children. So hopefully more and more people will get their heads around their idea that there is more to being a woman than being a mother.

I agree with other posters - if you don't really really want it, don't do it. What does your gut say? What would your ideal Saturday afternoon look like in 10 years time?

I'm in my late 30's now and I've never felt any desire to have children. I like my life exactly the way it is now and I don't think that having children would change it for the better. I love our nephews and nieces and I enjoy spending time with them but I'm so happy to hand them back to their parents. I just find them exhausting. Fortunately, DH feels exactly the same, so it hasn't caused any issues between us. I think that it's far better for me to recognise that I'm a brilliant Aunty (I am, it has to be said! ) but not cut out to be a mother, than to have children because it's expected and not be able to give them what they need.

The only thing I've found is that, as I've got older, some people think it's acceptable to almost demand that I justify why I haven't had children.

FWIW my parents weren't broody either. They just got to mid thirties (bearing in mind this was the 1980s, so they were considered 'old' parents) and thought "hmm, should probably get on with it". Totally fell in love with me when I was born, but not remotely fussed before that apparently. Then had two MCs after (one late seemingly caused by amnio, which was pushed on her due to age) and I know she feels sad about that.

There is nothing wrong with not having DCs, so don't let cultural expectations sway you.

I think there are people who regret having children and some who regret not having children. I'm not entirely sure that those who wish they hadn't had children are people who necessarily were ambivalent before they had kids, I know people who desperately wanted children who went on to have serious psychotic PND who regret the effect that has had on their health and relationships. I know people who 'never wanted kids' in their 20s and 30s who have gone on to love family life in their 40s.

Having children is like getting married, it is about hope, about a possible future that you have no idea about before you get to it. Different people have different dreams and different people will find different parts of parenting rewarding or challenging. You have to make your own decision based on how you feel NOW and then cope with that the positive and negative effects of that decision as best you can over the rest of your life. I think not having children is a very valid decision (obviously since I didn't want children for the majority of my adult life) but so is choosing to have kids.

It's such a hard issue, because there is no way of knowing 'the other side' so to speak.

And it's such a barely-discussed subject - both the idea that not all women are desperate to be mothers, and the idea that many regret becoming mothers. It shouldn't be so taboo :(